When Bad News Sticks: the Effect of Valence and the Timing of Source Credibility on Attitude Strength

When is bad news sticky in that it weakens consumers’ brand attitudes? We investigate the effect of credibility of negative information, and whether the credibility is known before or after reading the information, on consumers’ attitude strength. Bad news is elaborated on more when participants learn about the credibility of the source after they read the information. The greater elaboration weakens attitudes when the source is credible but strengthens them when the source is not credible.



Citation:

Matthias Birk, Gita Johar, and Jaideep Sengupta (2009) ,"When Bad News Sticks: the Effect of Valence and the Timing of Source Credibility on Attitude Strength", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 198-201.

Authors

Matthias Birk, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany
Gita Johar, Columbia University, USA
Jaideep Sengupta, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, China



Volume

NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36 | 2009



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